Overcoming Obstacles
Living with chronic pain means overcoming obstacles in life…
What happens when excruciating pain unexpectedly becomes your daily reality? I am talking about ghastly pain you can’t control; when all of a sudden, you are literally stopped frozen in your tracks. You literally can’t move. You can’t breathe. You can’t work. You can’t do anything. What do you really do when you lose your tight-fisted grip on life?
Envision yourself as a professional boxer during a championship fight. When knocked to the canvas by a vicious, right upper cut, what do you do next? Most likely, instead of throwing in the towel, you will try to continue the fight. Based upon your trained instincts, you know that you must try to win. This is who you are and this is clearly what you will do. Overcoming obstacles is the name of the fight game!
Further into the contest, you try to outlast another flurry of punches from your ironfisted opponent. To no avail, a solid right-hand connects a second time, delivering a devastating blow on your chin. Down to the canvas you go again. This time you’re overpowered beyond your capabilities. What do you do now, when beaten and battered, and with very limited options? Have you ever felt like this when squarely knocked down to the canvas of life? When it seems the options have run out and there is absolutely no hope remaining?
The central message when fighting against chronic pain involves your ultimate response to it.
Overcoming Obstacles – Making the Right Choices When Dealing with Pain
Overcoming obstacles in life is much like the boxing analogy — when knocked to the canvas of life, you face very important choices. Do you try to get back up and start swinging aimlessly, hoping to rid your problems with a one-time knockout? Or do you try to identify who your opponent really is and plan for the best comeback? Oftentimes, your reaction to being hit, and your response thereafter, determines your ability and capacity for overcoming obstacles.
When it came to overcoming obstacles, Vicktor Frankl, an Austrian neurologist, psychologist, and Holocaust survivor, said:
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Personally, I chose to look to God for answers. Inevitably, it was He that formed my attitude about chronic pain.
Overcoming Obstacles – Two Important Points Related to Chronic Pain
When it comes to overcoming obstacles related to chronic pain, here are two, hard-fought lessons from the ring…
First, you must recognize who or what you are fighting? In all likelihood, part of who you are and how you handle traumatic circumstances may be counterproductive to overcoming obstacles. Like being the fighter in the ring, everything comes at a very fast pace. When being knocked down by chronic pain, accept the slower pace of who you are now and where you are headed. Enduring painful trials can produce Godly character within you, if you choose to embrace the full meaning of what has happened to you.
Second, you must be willing to adopt a new perspective, even if you fear that this place is where you might actually lose everything that you consider important. You might have to surrender to circumstances in which you have no control. Oftentimes, from this place of brokenness, you will find strength despite being physically weakened from pain. Like Vicktor Frankl, who persevered against unspeakable odds, your mindset on how to move forward requires a fearless attitude about your beliefs. From your belief system, you can be pulled out of despair, even from such an inhumane place that seems like your own, personal, concentration camp. Regardless of your painful limitations, your attitude about your beliefs can provide enormous momentum to move you toward recovery.
One way or another, you must choose what to do next, even against the flurry of punches delivered by horrendous pain. Other related topics about living with chronic pain are contained within this site. Thank you for stopping by…